Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
In February 2009, Hugo Chavez and Chinese Vice-president Xi Jinping signed an agreement for the construction of a cellphone factory. For the construction, China’s ZTE and Venezuela’s Movilnet established a joint venture called VTELCA of which China holds a 15% stake. This project received 19.5 million USD of funding from the Fondo Pesado (China-Venezuela Joint Financing Fund). Unclear how much comes from China exactly. In 2009, Chavez publicized the ZTE C366 “el Vergatario”, which was produced to show the technological capacity of the plant. Starting in 2010, Chavez pledged to produce a million phones per year in addition to battery chargers and batteries. In September of 2013, Vtelca produced the Android Vergatario, the third model with the android operating system of which it produces 4,000 units a day. China-Venezuela Joint Fund is party financed by China Development Bank. The total transaction amount of the project is $19.5 million but we don't know exactly how much is provided by China. The China-Venezuela Joint Fund receives contributions from China Development Bank and FONDEN, and it is administered by BANDES. See Record ID#58677 for more information on the fund. Additionally, decause this project was supported, at least in part, by the China-Venezuela Joint Fund/Fondo Estrategico Pesado (See #35985, #37528, #37838, #38163, 38316, and #38380), this project is marked as a resource-backed or commodity-backed loan.